Alcohol at last.

After a month of bodybuilding, I met up with a couple of mates and got drinks.

First alcohol in a month. Stray bar. Oh Deer. Too sour for me. Taiko ramen lamb tantamen in Mackie Mayor's. Great. Thai fighter in Posie, new bar in the financial district. Bean flavoured. Original.

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— Matt Tuckey 🇬🇧 (@matttuckey.bsky.social) 29 March 2026 at 12:27

Started in Stray bar in Mackie Mayor, got food, found the new Posie bar, which had an almost Moroccan vibe. Had a bizarre bean-flavoured cocktail. Barman looked like Oscar Isaac off Ex Machina. Went on to Lawn Club in Spinningfields. 00s era house music and a Coral Club cocktail. Missed my last bus. Oh well. 

Also this week I passed the 1.9 million hit mark on this blog. Experiencing an absurd and inexplicable surge of page views.

Another Bodybuilding Month: Results

I’ve spent the last month religiously grafting at Oldham Sports Centre trying to gain as much strength as possible. I have eaten like a monster – reasonably healthily – and worked out twice a day on most days. 

The results are in. I’m exactly the same weight – 81.4kg. Bizarre. 

I split down the workouts into chest, back and leg sessions, plus mixed in pump (weight movements in time to music) and circuit (rotating around different exercises in rounds) classes. I’ve made some serious progress. 

Close hand lateral pulldown. 

Hands close together above the head, pulling the handle down to chest level. This is my favourite movement of all of them. I started this with a PB of 70kg from April ‘25. I managed to work this up to 100kg. 

Angled leg press. 

This is a new machine that’s been added in a recent refurb. Seat is leant back, foot plate is higher than head level, with weights loaded behind it, pushing straight out. I started this at 70kg and worked it up to 190kg. 

Pec fly. 

New machine. Seated position, hands at chest level, bringing the handles together in front of the sternum. Started at 50kg, worked up to 73kg. 

Diverging Lat Pulldown. 

New machine. 2 handles on pulleys above the head, pulling down to shoulder level. Had a record of 104kg, immediately got 109kg, the highest weight on the machine. 

Quad curl.

Kicking the lower leg straight out. Had a PB of 106kg, got 111kg, the highest weight on the machine. 

Leg press. 

Seat is horizontal and moves back as you push out. Foot plate stays static at hip level. I had 136kg on this. Worked up to 186kg, the highest weight on the machine. 

Diverging Low Row. 

Seated with feet out in front on a fixed plate, 2 handles at hip level are pulled into the waist. I had 100kg, got 109kg, the highest weight on the machine. 

Wide grip lateral pulldown. 

Seated with hands on the bar above the head, angled down at the end, pulley lifts the weights as you bring your hands down to shoulder level. My record was 75kg from 2016, as far as I could see. I got up to 91kg. 

Hamstring curl. 

Before the refurb, the hamstring machine was a seated affair with handles at the hips so you could hold yourself in place. Now, the hamstring machine is prone, with a slight bend at the torso, which really isolates the hamstring muscle. You aren’t using your upper body to compensate. This time I could only get as high as 41kg. 

Converging Chest Press. 

Seated press where the hands come slightly closer at the end of each rep. I had a PB of 54kg. Ended at 73kg. 

 Chest Press. 

Standard seated machine where the hands are pressed straight out in front. This is my oldest PB of 103kg from 2013. I got close, but no PB this time and this remains my oldest record. 

So yeah. Some good progress made. I forgot to take a picture of myself before, but this is me now:

Results of a month of bodybuilding. No powders and definitely no steroids. Just good food and graft.

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— Matt Tuckey 🇬🇧 (@matttuckey.bsky.social) 28 March 2026 at 17:06

And now to get drunk for the first time in a month! I've cut out junk food and alcohol and fought the cravings, hence it's a Psychology Saturday post.

Come sample the new Shrimp bar

Last week Ryan Keely weighed in on the ‘baboon vs badger’ debate.

Made by Vidma Recorder : https://t.co/jDWVaM6Zd2 Ryan Keeley weighing in on the baboon vs badger debate pic.twitter.com/BpCJzoR1bU

— Matt Tuckey 🇬🇧 (@matthewtuckey) March 19, 2026

She did not in fact get back to me. Sarcasm much? 

Also I passed 1.8 million hits on this blog. Experiencing an inexplicable surge. 150K in the last month. Incredible. At this rate I should pass the 2 million hit mark in a month. 

This week: on Saturday I’ll hit a deadline for this Bodybuilding Project that I will have been doing for a month. Hoping to squeeze in a couple more PBs before then. Then, time to relax… Manchester Nightlife Meetup group is headed to Bar Shrimp, a new venue in New York St, right in the heart of the financial district. First time for me. First alcohol in a month for me. 

Also, a book review, something on disability travel passes and a journaling event.

Law 1: Never Outshine the Master

In Robert Greene’s the 48 Laws of Power, his first law is ‘Never Outshine the Master.’ 

His example uses a 17th century French king, Louis XIV, and his finance minister Nicolas Fouquet who upstaged him. Fouquet ended up spending his remaining days in a mountainous, freezing prison in the Pyrenees. (Wikipedia tells a slightly different reason to Greene’s version, suggesting Fouquet’s networking and influence in society was a more aggravating factor. But hey, maybe that outshone the King too.) 

I’ve got a slightly more contemporary example. Some time at the end of the 2000s, I was training in a Mixed Martial Arts gym in Oldham. The instructor DB was known to be good at what he taught – his fighters usually won, and his lessons were packed with solid advice. If it transpired that DB didn’t know a specific thing, he’d go and look it up and incorporate it. We were drilling chokes in one session, and I used the word ‘trachea’ instead of ‘windpipe,’ off the cuff, and I seemed to be the only person in the room who knew the word. He started using the word during choke lessons not long after this. 

There was a kid training there who probably wasn’t even 18 yet. He’d apparently had a period of absence, and then rocked up one day at training with a largely unnecessary written note as to why he’d been off. This got him the nickname ‘Sicknote.’ He was young mentally too, and not particularly confident when he spoke, but when he did pipe up had a habit of doing so at the wrong moment. 

During an explanation of a particular move, Sicknote contradicted DB in front of the class. 

“Do you want to take over?” DB sarcastically asked him, pointing to a space in the mats. 

Sicknote did not. 

He was apparently training in MMA elsewhere as well. I was a similar height and build, so at DB’s gym I paired with him a couple of times. Twice, he changed up the movement that we were drilling to some other movement he'd learned elsewhere, which first off is a ballache when you have memory difficulties. It’s hard enough just learning one thing, without throwing in something else in the same round. More to the point, it’s rude. If you’re paying someone to teach you to do something, just do what they tell you to. They’re a martial arts INSTRUCTOR, not an ADVISOR. 

The second time this happened, DB pulled him up on it. Sicknote protested, claiming he was doing nothing wrong. DB went to the cash register, gave him his class fee back, and told him to leave the gym. Sicknote was gobsmacked, but complied. We never saw him again. 

The upshot: if they’re in charge, let them be in charge. Transgress this at your peril.

Leeds Comic Con '26

Michael Carter, Return of the Jedi's Bib Fortuna

 

“My agent rang,” Michael Carter tells us. “He said, you’ve got an interview for Blue Harvest, a sci fi film. I wasn’t keen, but went anyway. They offered me the job on the spot. I said no. I didn’t want to do it. Then I said okay. Then they said it was the third Star Wars film. I didn’t know anything about it. I was working in theatre, and wasn’t supposed to tell anyone. I went home and immediately told the kids. It was a 21 week shoot; I was there every day for the first 5 weeks. I thought, this is a bit weird. We spent time in preproduction, getting the outfit on; I felt like a big kid.” 

Carter, who played Bib Fortuna in 1983’s Return of the Jedi, is the star guest at Leeds Comic Con in the Royal Armouries Museum. It’s Saturday 14th March, and it’s my second Creed Conventions event. 

COMPARE: Did you know it would have the legacy it did? 

MC: We knew it was Star Wars, but we didn’t think it was as big as it is. I don’t know why it has the effect on the imagination. 

COMPARE: What’s the standalone moment for you? 

MC: When people come up to you and say they remember you from when they were a kid. My son was terrified when I came on screen. He didn’t see me on film for 20 years. 

Carter also played the subway victim in An American Werewolf in London. 

MC: That was the first film I ever did. There was a flu pandemic at the time, and I got it 10 days before filming. The doctor told me ‘you cannot work.’ I lost 2+1/2 stone. I was very thin. I was young and fit, but ill. The special effects were amazing! It was great giving employment to animatronics and working with (director) John Landis. We did the cinema scene next. 

COMPARE: Did it open doors for you? 

MC: There wasn’t much of a cinema scene in the UK. I did a film called The Keep, a Michael Mann film. They knew I could do prosthetics. In Jedi, we managed to get makeup down to 59 minutes. 

COMPARE: Who was the friendliest actor and who was the most cantankerous? 

MC: Jeremy Bulloch (Boba Fett) and Anthony Daniels (C3PO) were both very friendly. I had coffee with them. Nobody was cantankerous. A lot of people fainted in the costumes. I’d be saying, ‘Jabba Kabadda,’ and there’d be a terrible thump. Someone else had fallen. I got to the dressing room and got stuck in the outfit, and had to take the head off with a meat cleaver. 

COMPARE: Who do you miss the most? 

MC: Jeremy (Bulloch, Empire Strikes Back’s Boba Fett, died in 2020). He was one of the last J Arthur Rank contract actors. 

COMPARE: He was in Carry on Talking. Tell me about getting into acting. 

MC: I was the first person in The Crucible at my local theatre. You pick up stuff, scratching for the good work. 

COMPARE: Any alumni from RADA? (Royal Academy of Dramatic Art) 

MC: Michael Kitchen (DC Chris Foyle in Foyle’s War, Bill Tanner in Goldeneye / The World is Not Enough, narrator on TV show Faking It) and David Bradley (Billy in Kes, the dad in After Life). 

COMPARE: Which role are you most proud of? 

MC: I was in Anthony and Cleopatra with Anthony Hopkins and Dame Judy Dench. That was something. I was on Broadway with Dustin Hoffman. 

COMPARE: Anything you still want to pursue? 

MC: No, I’m semi-retired. 

COMPARE: Any plans for an autobiography? 

MC: Some things you don’t want to say, ‘cause you’ll get sued. 

The mic goes out to the audience. The first question: what was it like being turned into an action figure? 

MC: One actor was going to sue Lucasfilm. He did, and got a payout; I didn’t dare. It’s kinda weird. One time a little old lady met me and said, ‘someone told me you were in Return of the Jedi. Can you sign this?’ It was me in a red cloak. I said, ‘don’t take this out of the package. It’s really rare.’ She had paid £5. 

At this point, I managed to ask about Harrison Ford. Between the Star Wars films, he’d had a cameo in Apocalypse Now in ’79 as Cl. Lucas. Did he mention filming this during the Jedi shoot? 

MC: Harrison was filming something else at the time. I was in 1 scene with him, but we didn’t talk. 

Well then. 

The last audience question goes to American Werewolf in London, in which Carter plays the first victim on the underground. He tells us that the scene was shot at 6am in a secret station that exists way below ground, underneath the actual station. 

Michael Carter was the main draw for this convention, the other actors being people I wasn’t familiar with. Small venue, only stayed there 3 or so hours. Enjoyed it. 

Come hide out in Hideout

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Last week Shadow from 90s TV show Gladiators liked my science joke. 

I met Bib Fortuna off Return of the Jedi, so you can expect a whole blog post about that. 

Also expect an update on disability travel passes. 

Saturday night: come with Manchester Nightlife Meetup group to Hideout, the new house music bar and club off Deansgate. It’s small and plays house, tech, RnB and garage. That’s all I know. Looks cool though.

Confidence Session in Hinterland

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‘Keep the pen moving,’ suggests Fi. ‘Think about what you want to gain from the session.’ 

Organisers Fi and Alex welcome us to a trial for a confidence course they are planning to run. It’s Friday, 27th Feb. This is the warmup exercise.

Confidence is a lifelong battle. It’s something I’m never not working on. I’ve been to a lot of confidence-related events. I’m hoping to learn something new, to help other people and challenge myself. Confidence affects people in different ways. Are people confident in work? In gym and sports? In relationships? When speaking 1-1 or in front of an audience? It can vary. People can have an abundance in one way but none in another. From my years of researching these things, my conclusion is that confidence comes from understanding that no matter what happens, I’ll be okay.

Confidence course in Hinterland Manchester

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— Matt Tuckey 🇬🇧 (@matttuckey.bsky.social) 11 March 2026 at 10:32

We discussed each of these points. 

SAY NO 

Learn to tolerate the discomfort of rejecting. Save time for rest and creativity. 

SAY YES 

Doing so before feeling really ready is liberating. You don’t have to know the end goal. Fi reads out the poem I Will Not Die an Unlived Life, by Dawna Markova. 

TO SHINE 

This can look like imposter syndrome when you take on a bigger challenge that draws attention. There’s space for all of us to shine. Fi asks, where do I make myself smaller than I need to? 

BE DIFFERENT 

It takes confidence to be different. What part of me have I tried to avoid that may actually be a strength? 

DO NOTHING 

What does it mean to be worthy, but not productive? When have I felt uncomfortable in my own inaction? Alex takes over here and explains that some words have immediate impact. For an example: 

CONFIDENCE. 

The source of true confidence, he claims, is to speak, be honest, and be authentic. Own your own personal power. Confidence, Alex explains, comes from the Latin confideri, meaning ‘with full trust.’ The Indo-European original word before it is Fideri, meaning ‘persuading,’ and from the Latin we also get related words like ‘conning’ and ‘con artists.’ It’s the belief, he tells us, ‘in veracity or truth of another.’ He encourages us to stand with confidence with your whole being. 

Interesting session. There is always, and I hate to say it, the question of who’s authority are they telling us this? Are they qualified psychotherapists? How much trust can we put into this? Would the NHS agree with their sessions? 

Now to put it into practice…